Take These Broken Wings
by BonesBird
Summary: Discussing her family situation has never been easy for her, but now, B'Elanna Torres must confront her past to accept her future.


**Title: Take These Broken Wings  
Summary: Discussing her family situation has never been easy for her, but now, B'Elanna Torres must confront her past to accept her future.**

**This is a special little present to my friend PinkAngel. Coz I love her.**

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There was silence around her, and all of a sudden she was six years old again. She was six years old and she heard the arguments, shaking the windows of the house. The doors being slammed and the snarled insults along the corridors of the house they shared. Then, there was silence. In that moment her idea of family fractured. It didn't matter that he came back, she already knew that it wouldn't last. It would only be days before the next fight started up. One day the fights got too much for them all, and he left. Again. For good. This time she felt it was though.

Looking back through the years, she realised that while the second time he'd left, after the camping trip, had been playing on her mind. She had been broken long before that. She had been broken the first time he'd left, the first time he had just pushed her away because he and her mother had been having problems. She had promised to talk to Tom about her issues around her family, it was something they'd never really spoken about, because she shut down. Now it was going to affect them, and their lives together, so he deserved to know.

"Tom, are you awake?" She whispered, feeling him stir slightly and role more towards her, before his sleepy answer came, telling her that he had only been dozing.

"No." He murmured, even while he moved just a little.

"Can you be?" She asked again, sounding far more timid than she usually did. Something in her tone clearly told Tom that this wasn't a casual request, he pushed himself over and turned to face her, has hand gently skittering over her stomach as he moved slightly closer to her.

"What's wrong Bee?" He asked, his voice full of concern.

"I just want to talk."

"Sure." He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into his side, and immediately she felt a little better, and she knew in that instant that she was doing the right thing, and that he would listen to her fears, no matter how ridiculous they seemed.

"I was thinking about my father."

"What about him?" Tom whispered, settling his chin on her shoulder, giving her his undivided attention.

"I told you once, about how he left when I was little."

"I remember."

"That was the first time. He came back a few years later, and they made another go of it. It didn't last and that was when… everything happened."

"OK?" He sounded confused, and she understood why. She was just repeating things she'd told him before, but her mind wasn't thinking clearly, and she wasn't even completely certain what she actually wanted to say. So she stopped a second, and thought.

"Tom… We fight all the time, what is that going to be like for the baby."

"Bee" He soothed, rubbing her back in the calming way only he had ever known. He hushed in her ear a couple more times before he began speaking. "We'll just have to try harder, to focus on each other more. We've a fiery relationship, we always have had. Now we're just going to have to try and calm it."

"You know that, there is nothing I wouldn't do for you"

"Shush, Bee." He held her close, and she finally felt her eyes begin to flutter shut as the man she loved held her tight against his chest. As she drifted she heard him speak again. The three words she always liked to hear, the three words that gave her the confidence to get through every day. "I love you."

She slid into the dark world, her fatigue finally claiming her but as she did, she knew she was safe and protected, and she also knew that nothing would ever happen to her daughter. Not when she had a father like Tom Paris, who had already fought battles for her, before she'd even been born. He proved time and again that he loved her, and he last thought was that he'd somehow taken her broken form, and put her back together again.


End file.
